29 September 2010

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is arguably one of the best selling fighting games ever made. The game's sales aren't the arguable part, but its status as a fighting game is. I know that the guys I've interviewed who play Brawl competitively would argue that it's just as much of a fighting game as Street Fighter or Soul Calibur. Do you think Brawl is a fighting game, and if so, do you think Brawl will ever be playable at EVO?

It’s a real fighting game. I didn’t always think that, but I changed my mind after spending more time playing both Melee and Brawl. We actually had Brawl on the main stage in 2008 (with items on!) and I thought it was one of the best tourneys that year, with some spectacular finishes and outstanding play. Most of the competitive Smash community prefers to play with items off, which is their call to make, but we try to play a kind of “no holds barred” style at EVO, until something is proven to be undeniably messed up. I can’t imagine how crummy Marvel Vs Capcom 2 would be today if we had started banning things the first time we thought something was “overpowered” or “too random.” (Source)The current FAS League play seems to be similar to the SSBB league play, or at least heading in that direction. Banning weapons is never a good idea so early in the game's development, since players haven't figured out counters; when you ban the weapons, they never will know how to counter them, reducing the amount of skill involved in competitive play. DysPatch, the league admin, even admits the M79 is not a problem in with smaller player counts:

Sep 07 12:56:15 DysPatch - yeah i think the problem is, you only see how effectives explosives are when you have a full serverSep 07 12:56:17 DysPatch - 1 on 1Sep 07 12:56:26 DysPatch - if you have an m79 and the other person an ARSep 07 12:56:31DysPatch -the person with the AR is going to win

So why the restrictions on a single weapon that the lead developer doesn't consider unbalanced with lower player counts? An over emphasis on league play and the leader developer catering to a small but vocal minority will not get FAS to the level of popularity that older versions of FA had.

- Speed modifiers for heavy and medium armor.- You can select spectate from the team menu after spawning now.- Fixed bug where you would be shown in the wrong team colour when an enemy you hurt would commit suicide. This is now shown as an "assisted suicide" in the death notices.- Teamkills no longer report an assister to avoid confusion with the assister being in the wrong team colour. You are silently rewarded assist points.- Improved assault rifle accuracy (usually 2-3x more accurate) - tweaked to 1024 unit range- Improved SMG accuracy (about 1.5-2x more accurate) - tweaked to 512 unit range- Improved pistol accuracy (to about the same degree as SMGs), lowered damage to compensate- LMGs now have 0.25x the bullet cone while deployed- M60 damage lowered- M1911 damage increased- SR-25 recoil significantly increased- Lowered M79 Cost- Fixed inaccurate skill descriptions- When healing yourself with the IFAK, it no longer reports the previous healing target- Fixed tracer rounds on the Vollmer- Armor damage mitigation modified to lower values. Light 0.4x, Medium 0.5x, Heavy 0.6x- Different types of armor have different armor hit point values, rather than being 150 for all of them. Light has 100, heavy has 200, helmet has 100, limb armor has 75- Added new damage sounds- Run speed reduced to 210 from 230 (~9% slower)- Sprint speed reduced to 325 from 340 (~4% slower)- Changed strafe and backpedal speeds. Backwards: 0.6 from 0.8, Strafe: 0.7 from 0.8- Removed delay between firemode toggle- Added missing MenuOpen/MenuClose/MenuPulse HUD animations- Resolved sniper weapon selection slot conflicts- Delay between voice and radio messages- Weapons start with full ammo on spawn (6 reserve mags rather than 4)- Hopefully improved stability of Mortars- Added a fas_version command- Reworked the ammobox code a little bit to address the ammoboxes only giving ammo to the current weapon- Made some tweaks to the lighting effects for the NVG's to help prevent model texture/material washout- Addressed an area of potentially invalid memory in the round over HUD element which could cause a crash- Reworked some VGUI panels (MOTD, team panel, loadout etc)- Fixed hint panel showing a black box with no text in it- Fixed case where holding down MOUSE2 would continue to play the idle animation when you aim down the sights (G36C)- Holding down the attack, attack2 or reload key will no longer prevent a weapon from deploying- Solved some visual glitches associated with bolt action (or pump action) weapons- Disabled the ability to jump if your stamina is less than the amount of stamina drained for jump- Slightly upped the stamina drain for jumping from 20 to 30- Setting fas_endgametimer to -1 will remove the 0 rein timeout, waiting until all the players on the team are dead or a full cap is made- Added fov_desired cvar which is used in Valve's official games which allows you to adjust your FOV between 75 and 90. Defaults to 90- You can no longer climb a ladder while prone or ducked- Burst fire queues bullets to fire, so 1 click = 3 bullets (with M16/FAMAS), rather than having to hold it down- mp_switchteams is now fully operational and will flip the teams when a server admin issues the command- Ability to restrict weapons per-server through a weapons blacklist- Shotgun reload cancelling waits until you have released the mouse button- View punches for recoil are now applied to spectators- Firemode recoil modifiers are fully operational- Marksman skill increases accuracy in 10% increments rather than 5% (5->10, 10->20, 15->30)- Projectiles no longer spawn at the other side of a wall when you're facing next to one- Reinforcements are drained on spawn rather than death- Added 4-directional hit indicators, in addition to the red fade- Ammo caches will replace partial magazines- Fix for ragdoll spam on initial spawn which would lag out players- Re-compressed textures which should help users running on low end machines- SG550 and FAMAS have been re-animated- Specular maps added to weapon view models- Fixed channels and attenuation of some sounds, fixes some issues where you can't hear the gun you're being shot by- Fixed potential crashes with quick bandaging- Kill icon for suicide- Fixed ERRORNAME appearing when destroying SD objectives- Fixed bug with animations and reloading when going prone with internal magazine weapons (M3)- Fixed the appearance of an IFAK floating next to a player when a player has been put in spectator- Weapons can fire underwater- Added cvar fas_switch_teams_on_rwin which flips the teams and rein count between rounds- Gunnery II now improves holster/deploy times as the label describes- Server name now appears on scoreboard- Game should now end after a full cap results in a team going to 0 reins

New for mappers in 1.0e- PointsForDestroy keyvalue on sd crates to give players points for destroying the objective

28 August 2010

The FAS 1.0e/1.1 Change Log has been updated. The following changes have been added since August 17th.

- Added 4-directional hit indicators, in addition to the red fade- Ammo caches will replace partial magazines- Fix for ragdoll spam on initial spawn which would lag out players- Re-compressed textures which should help users running on low end machines- SG550 and FAMAS have been re-animated- Specular maps added to weapon view models- Fixed channels and attenuation of some sounds, fixes some issues where you can't hear the gun you're being shot by- Fixed potential crashes with quick bandaging- Kill icon for suicide- Fixed ERRORNAME appearing when destroying SD objectives- Fixed bug with animations and reloading when going prone with internal magazine weapons (M3)- Fixed the appearance of an IFAK floating next to a player when a player has been put in spectator- Weapons can fire underwater- Added cvar fas_switch_teams_on_rwin which flips the teams and rein count between rounds- Gunnery II now improves holster/deploy times as the label describes

New for mappers in 1.0e- PointsForDestroy keyvalue on sd crates to give players points for destroying the objective

17 August 2010

FAS has a new forum for FAS related support, surprisingly called the FAS Support Forum. Here you can ask for help with any FAS related issues, from glitches to general tweaks to improve your overall experience.

In Bob_Gneu's developer blog, he has linked the bug tracking tool used by the FAS Team and Testers to track, test and fix bugs. According to Bob_Gneu, "you can now oversee how we are working and what we are working on." Not only that, but you are able to contribute to the bug tracker, the only stipulation is that you can not register anonymously to avoid an environment similar to the input forum.

If not, you can still check it out and see a bit behind the scenes of FAS.

13 August 2010

The 1.0e/1.1 Change Log has been updated. The following changes have been added since August 7th.

- Hopefully improved stability of Mortars- Added a fas_version command- Reworked the ammobox code a little bit to address the ammoboxes only giving ammo to the current weapon- Made some tweaks to the lighting effects for the NVG's to help prevent model texture/material washout- Addressed an area of potentially invalid memory in the round over HUD element which could cause a crash- Reworked some VGUI panels (MOTD, team panel, loadout etc)- Fixed hint panel showing a black box with no text in it- Fixed case where holding down MOUSE2 would continue to play the idle animation when you aim down the sights (G36C)- Holding down the attack, attack2 or reload key will no longer prevent a weapon from deploying- Solved some visual glitches associated with bolt action (or pump action) weapons- Disabled the ability to jump if your stamina is less than the amount of stamina drained for jump- Slightly upped the stamina drain for jumping from 20 to 30- Setting fas_endgametimer to -1 will remove the 0 rein timeout, waiting until all the players on the team are dead or a full cap is made- Added fov_desired cvar which is used in Valve's official games which allows you to adjust your FOV between 75 and 90. Defaults to 90- You can no longer climb a ladder while prone or ducked- Burst fire queues bullets to fire, so 1 click = 3 bullets (with M16/FAMAS), rather than having to hold it down- mp_switchteams is now fully operational and will flip the teams when a server admin issues the command- Ability to restrict weapons per-server through a weapons blacklist- Shotgun reload cancelling waits until you have released the mouse button- View punches for recoil are now applied to spectators- Firemode recoil modifiers are fully operational- Marksman skill increases accuracy in 10% increments rather than 5% (5->10, 10->20, 15->30)

The FAS Team is considering releasing another patch,1.0e, which would include all the bug fixes and balance tweaks of 1.1, but none of the new weapons. However, this may push 1.1 back some if they have to devote their time to packaging up what they have now for release.

07 August 2010

FAS 1.0e/1.1 looks to improve gameplay in a variety of ways. From tweaking armor and weapon values, to adjusting movement speeds, to possibly 8 new weapons, the next patch is looking great. Be sure to check this thread in the input forum for more updates.

Changes since 1.0d- Speed modifiers for heavy and medium armor.- You can select spectate from the team menu after spawning now.- Fixed bug where you would be shown in the wrong team color when an enemy you hurt would commit suicide. This is now shown as an "assisted suicide" in the death notices.- Teamkills no longer report an assister to avoid confusion with the assister being in the wrong team color. You are silently rewarded assist points.- Improved assault rifle accuracy (usually 2-3x more accurate) - tweaked to 1024 unit range- Improved SMG accuracy (about 1.5-2x more accurate) - tweaked to 512 unit range- Improved pistol accuracy (to about the same degree as SMGs), lowered damage to compensate- LMGs now have 0.25x the bullet cone while deployed- M60 damage lowered- SR-25 recoil increased- Fixed inaccurate skill descriptions- When healing yourself with the IFAK, it no longer reports the previous healing target- Fixed tracer rounds on the Vollmer- Armor damage mitigation modified to lower values. Light 0.4x, Medium 0.5x, Heavy 0.6x- Different types of armor have different armor hit point values, rather than being 150 for all of them. Light has 100, heavy has 200, helmet has 100, limb armor has 75- Added new damage sounds- Run speed reduced to 210 from 230 (~9% slower)- Sprint speed reduced to 325 from 340 (~4% slower)- Changed strafe and backpedal speeds. Backwards: 0.6 from 0.8, Strafe: 0.7 from 0.8- Removed delay between firemode toggle- Added missing MenuOpen/MenuClose/MenuPulse HUD animations- Resolved sniper weapon selection slot conflicts- Delay between voice and radio messages- Weapons start with full ammo on spawn (6 reserve mags rather than 4)

22 July 2010

Planet Half Life has put up their review of Firearms: Source 1.0.The actual review talks a lot about what makes FAS a great game, but instead of chopping up their review, I'll summarize it in one sentence: FAS is awesome!

With the recent update to the FAS Forums, the developers and testers are able to make blog post. Such post replace the previous developers and tester forums, allowing the team and testers to show off new media, talk about the development or testing of FAS, as well as ask questions to the community, such as which weapons should be included with FAS 1.1.

11 July 2010

The forums will be locked tomorrow (July 12th) at approximately 6pm EST so that we can upgrade the forum software. Because we will also be migrating to a new server, and must back up several GB worth of milthread and hot chicks photos, it may take up to 4 days for the forums to be back online.

See you on the other side, FA:Sers!

Taken from FAS Forums. If you still need your FAS fix, you can visit the FAS IRC or Ventrilo channel.

FAS has an official release date, 23 July 2010! The game has changed considerably since it was first conceived July 2006. The game has moved away from Counter-Strike: Source Grid Cache File to a complete custom library of models and assets. Various FA features have been added in that weren't originally going to be included, such as prone and custom player models.

This is only the start of FAS, as the team says they will continue supporting FAS for years to come.

Those who would want to start a FAS server, the team will release the server builds in advanced.

17 May 2010

DysPatch has revealed in this FA Forum post that the skill system and credit cost of FAS has been changed. The skill system will feature six unique skills, with three levels each, for a total of 18 skills. Players will be able to chose as many skills after they want for a set number of kills, for now. In the future, when more skills are added, there will be a cap to how many skills an individual can acquire. With so many skills though, it is unsure if there will still be the standard 10 kills per skill upgrade in previous versions.

DysPatch also provides an example of how this new skill system will work with the new Commander skill.

In addtion to the skill changes, FAS will move from the traditional 30 skill points to an even 100. This is for the anticipation of new weapons in the future, allowing for better balance. All current items in FAS will have their credit cost raised to reflect this new system, such as the cost of grenades being raised from two credits, to six credits.

FAS has released a time line of every FA releases that you can find on their history page (or a more detailed view here). In it, they release the release window for FAS which is sometime in July, as well as a new map SV_Dragovo.

27 April 2010

Now that steam has made their new UI official, you may have noticed that not much is done for third party programs and mods, as shown here.

This feature, DysPatch said, is available to games only who use the Steam Cloud in some way, for now. Unless FAS can be integrated with Steam like previous mods, everyone will have to suffer from the simple display.

The highlight feature in the previous news update may not make it to the first release candidate. DysPatch said in this thread that the highlighting was unstable, and had to be cut. If this means for testing, or for the first RC, has yet be determined.

Tired of repeating weapon sounds in games? Vunsuntra has the answer! "Upon release, each weapon will have 3-5 random stereo gunshots the engine will choose from for the 1st person perspective. All the weapons will have a distant sound as well, for when your far away from the gunshot source."Also for RC 1.0, there will be ricochet sounds as well as well as surface impact sounds.

In many FPS these days, there is some indicator whether you hit someone or not, be it a change in your cross hair, a noise, or some other visual clue. FAS will not be much different from these other games.

As DysPatch states in this thread, "we plan on having a nice helmet thud or flesh break if you hit someone in the head" and continues with, "I wouldn't mind a cross hair flash for hit recognition. Its been brewing in my mind for sometime." However, adds that it would be something for after the initial release of FA.

Not everyone though shares the same philosophy as DysPatch. Naoto points out that, "hit indicators are borderline cheating." Citing examples from play test, Naota recalls when damage was displayed on the HUD, saying "[it]was one of the most frustrating parts of the game until we went out of our way to remove the damage indicator from testing." These on screen indicators showed when you hit someone, allowing players to "fire their machine gun into the darkness/undergrowth/water/solid walls/prone players/window ledges far away and have the UI feedback tell them to keep shooting because they're hitting someone."

And as Naota said, "As awesome as it might be, bullets are not one of the five senses."

The April 25th testing continuned testing the stability of FAS on the orange box engine, as well as enusring that the push and territorial control gameplay worked. Thankfully, most of the issues have been sorted out, however, there are still issues when a team reaches zero reinforcements and someone captures all the points. Futhermore, there are still some issues with the rag-doll physics. Lastly, some balance changes will be looked at such as increasing each team's reinforcements, as well as increasing the effectiveness of armor. The following are known issues that will be fixed for the next build:

19 April 2010

DysPatch will now post Testing Debriefings in the Beta Testing Journal. Testing Debriefings summarize the last testing session as well as list bug fixes and changes that will be made for the next round of testing.

The 18 April 2010 testing tested the stability of the game on Orange Box, which is progressing but not as stable as previous builds, with issues such as PS and TC points crashing the server. However, many bugs have been identified and will be fixed for the next round of testing, including:

[Ten] years ago today, Firearms RC1 was released. It's kind of hard to believe, especially when you take into consideration the fact that it's been over [5 years] since we released the most recent version. I'd be the first person to admit that RC1 was hardly brilliant. In fact, when looking at it now, a lot of other team members along with myself are embarrassed with what we released. Graphically, it was pretty nasty. The code was buggy, with a lot of crashes, glitches and exploits. It still appealed to people though, and a buzzing community formed. Many of the original Firearms fans are still heavily involved with the mod, which is really nice to see.

During the year after RC1's release, there were several other releases of Firearms, I personally wasn't too heavily involved with them due to all my time being taken up by a job that I got thanks to Firearms. But with each new version that was released, the improvements were obvious. We were learning from our mistakes, and Firearms was getting better and better...

Lastly today, I'd like thank everyone who's ever made a contribution to Firearms. From Caspar who started it all, to Eric who made Firearms what it is today. There's also this page, which was once [upon] a time run by our lead programmer, Scott. That particular piece was written the very same day that Firearms was first released...Quite a transformation I think.

-Ben

[This post is Ben's two year birthday post, edited to be more relevant to FAS. You can view the original post by clicking the link at the top]

10 April 2010

The highlighting system in FAS was revealed with little fanfare, leaving many questions unanswered. Luckily, DysPatch has answered many questions about its implementation in this FAS Forum post.

Q: Or is there an option to turn highlights off for specific things, such as objectives, crates and people with specific skills (medic/leader)?

A: Yes, you can turn these effects off in your multilayer options.

Q: Does the ammo box's color change depending on the damage? Like if its in mint condition, its bright green, but servery damaged its dark green (or yellow)?

A: Not currently.

Q: What happens when an objective is destroyed? Does the outline just disappear completely?

A: The highlight will stay there until it is respawned.

Q: Would CTI items also get this glow when they are included as well?

A: We haven't completed the CTI gameplay model since we do not have any CTI maps yet, but the CTI objects in the map will have the glow. We have other plans to indicate where the intelligence is when a player is carrying it.

Q: Is this a mapping entity added to the specific objects, or does the engine automatically apply the glow for these specific objects?

A: No it is not a mapping entity, it is automatically created.

Q: How would the leadership aura work with this?

A: In terms of leadership, we haven't decided what we are going to do with the highlights, but it will most likely show on the players affected by the aura. In terms of whether or not YOU are being supported by the aura, we will either have an icon or a shader for RC1. Our ultimate goal is to get a shader that adds a subtle effect to your screen, but we may not have time to implement that and may stick with just a leadership icon on the HUD.

Q: What effect does this have on the all ready existing player indicators, if at all?

A: We are keeping the overhead indicators because they still serve a purpose that the highlights do not (health indicator, rank indicator, and skill indicator). We most likely will not be adding highlights to individual players because the screen could get cluttered very easily.

Following FAS's April Fool's news announcement, the team has released an actual news update. The team has showcased two of the grenades in FAS, the M67 Fragmentation Grenade and the M84 Stun Grenade. The fragmentation grenade is a FA staple and retains the cost in previous RCs at two credits for two grenades. The stun grenades cost slightly more than the frag grenades at three credits, but can blind enemies in a large area and grow more effective the more confined the space is.

FAS has also included objective highlighting. Similar to what is found in L4D and L4D2, the objective highlighting in FAS provides quick visual clues to players about where objectives are. In the pictures provided, you can see the red ammo crates with a red highlight, the blue ammo crates with a blue highlight, and a neutral object (the ammo box) with a green highlight.

FAS's April Fool's joke was the removal of dedicated servers and the implementation of "FANet." FANet would provide players with various "features." Such included matchmaking which determined games, "Based on mystical properties of fate beyond the ken all but our most astute software engineers, FANet will place you in the game you are meant to play." As well as a revolutionary new system of communication, "text chat" and custom content, reassuring the community that, "[those] who wish to contribute custom maps, models, skins, or other third-party content will be pleased to learn that they can't, thereby saving them from the very real, very dire threat of Communism."

29 March 2010

Shinobi has updated his developer's blog with a video for his personal portfolio of work he has done on FAS. The video includes a run though of parts ps_derailed and ps_crossfire, as well as some of the modeling and texture work he has done.

Player testers now are working on making sure there are no "exploits, bugs, [or anything] that could detract from gameplay."The forum still has moderated post: FAS team members have to view post before they can be posted. While this prevents leaks, it does not make it easier for testers to post game play experiences.

FAS's news post has made it official that FAS is moving over to the Orange Box engine. The reason for the change of engines is because of the problems in the older code, making the game very hard to debug and code. This change however does not effect FAS being released this year. As DysPatch states, "game balance down for what we would like to be released with RC1, so its as simple as moving the functioning clean code over, optimizing old code, and leaving behind the bugs." All of these improvements are made possible FA coding veteran, Mazor, who has done various work on the Half-Life version of FA and FA related projects.

FAS has also released new screen shots of ps_snowstorm. The map has undergone revisions since its last showcase. DysPatch has stated in his developer's journal he has been working on "finishing up the brushwork and the lighting on the map."

In addition to ps_snowstorm, there is a new render of the M18A1 Claymore Mine, modeled by Racer445

As well as the Gerber Gator Machete: modeled by Naota, textured by Dr. Hubbler, and animated by Thisismyname09.

Finally StealthSilver has updated and users who have Desura will be able download FAS though that distribution platform.

05 February 2010

Looking though the source code in FAS's Map Page, you can see some cut maps that are either no longer included in FAS such as ps_forest and maps that may be included in later RCs, such as sd_durandal. Below are a list of the cut maps or maps that may be included in later RCs.

Durandal

A quiet Middle Eastern town is torn apart when a coalition task force moves into the northern outskirts to set up a forward operating base. Red Forces are positioned across a bridge leading to the highway, which serves as a strategic vantage point for all traffic coming into this part of the city.

Author: HitmanGame Mode: Search and DestroyAsylum

Red Force para-military units have infiltrated Blue lines and freed all the inmates at a local mental hospital. Some of the inmates are leaders of various militias allied to the Red forces, held there temporarily, while others are homicidal psychopaths. Blue Force units quickly respond, cordon off the area and take measures to storm the building. Inside, however, it's now the inmates that run the Asylum...

Author: HitmanGame Mode: Team Control

Forest

As the battle wages on between both the Blue and Red forces, each side has taken heavy losses. In their never ending war, resources have been become scarce as their deadlocked troops fight to survive. Whoever crushes their opponent will gain a vast amount of natural resources to further their campaign and become the dominant force on the battlefield.

Author: AirwolfGame Mode: Push

Juarez

A combined South American and Mexican invasion of America co-incides with violent illegial alien protests and revolt. The southwest United States is thrown into immediate disarray and chaos. Innocent citizens are slaughtered wholesale by roaming gangs, government offices taken over by illegalsb flying Mexican flags, or captured by the invading armies. News broadcasts trickle in to CNN from behind the lines, where the leaders of the revolt are demanding that 'Aztlan', or the states of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California, rightfully belong to them. Within weeks, however, the Texas National Guard has gone on the offensive, smashing through to El Paso and linking up with the encircled Army units holding out in Fort Bliss. Now, their mission is to take the fight to the enemy by crossing the border into Ciudad Juarez.

Author: HitmanGame Mode: Push

Novospassky

As Blue force freedom fighters bear down on the Russian capitol, the remaining Red Force loyalists hole up in the last remaining sections of the city still under their control. A brutal fight ensues over the Novospassky bridge as both teams try and steal the others' intelligence assets, in bloody attempts to gain the upper hand.

Shinobi has greatly updated ps_derailed in terms of gameplay and texture work. The map's progressive spawns - which make you spawn closer to the enemy depending on what flag you hold - have been updated with the most notable change is that they are farther away from the middle cap point.

In addition to the spawn changes, the number of upper level areas has doubled and the texture work has been refined to give the map or more uniform theme, making the map much more industrial looking than before.

Finally, HRD in the map has been reduced but still keeping the areas that need to be light, light.

Shinobi has updated some aspects of ps_crossfire, detailed in his personal developer blog. The map before had some problems with the placement of some of the flags. One flag was hard to defend with "270 degrees of overwatches focused on it" and has been moved into a warehouse for safe keeping.

In addition, "the ghetto" flag will mostly likely be updated in this same fashion, making its defense easier.Finally, beside the flag updates, Shinobi has also added "a sewer system under the park area, hopefully this will make it easier for blue to hold as well as make it easier for red to cap."

FAS has released two wallpapers and an online manual for FAS to help new players become familiar with the game before it's release.

The first wallpaper is the new FAS logo designed by undertone with a release date show as "2010". The FAS team is still working on a few aspects of the mod to ensure that it is ready for the public which is why the release date is vague at "2010". Some coding issues still have to be worked out as well as more polish applied to the maps. However, all the art aspects of the mod are complete which has allowed the art team to go ahead and start working on content for after FAS's release.

As you can see, the new logo is more modern instead of the almost 10 year old stencil font that was previously used.

The second wallpaper is the same logo applied to an in game screen shot of FAS.

In addition to the wallpapers, there is now an online manual for FAS which is still being updated. The manual outlines the basic features of FAS, such as how to install the game, descriptions for each categories of weapons, list of skills and what benefits they provide, as well as a section for "pro tips and hits" which explain game play features in depth.

Some areas of the manual aren't finished, most notably the HUD section, but these will be updated soon.